I have just realised why they call him PROFESSOR Brian Cox

[freddiemisagreatshag]

Yes I am that thick. There's another one and he's old and doesn't play keyboards.

Sorry, just noticed that's the same list.

What a popular chappie

Apart from them having different hair, he's a bit like Brian May really isn't he?

Do you know Brian May is official a Dr Brian May with a phd in astrophysics from Imperial ?

Yes, that was my point

It was well cool when May went back and finished his thesis.

Look. Can we just let this thread die a dignified death please?

I'm sorry Freddie, I don't think this one is going anywhere except classics

I'm going to have to change my name.

lljkk - re publications, at his senior level it's expected that he would be last author on papers, not first. This reflects that he had the greatest contribution to the ideas/direction of the project. It's unusual for professors to still be first author on the majority of their papers, at least in the sciences.

but this is so funny

So please find which of his publications (ever, presumably after his Rock & Roll days?) were the important influential ones? What did he submit for his last 2 RAEs?

He was brilliant and informative on The Last Leg.

lljkk what are you trying to show here? He publishes as part of the ATLAS team. Have a look at one of the papers. They all have about 140 co-authors

Er, I think I have better things to do! Just saying you wouldn't expect first author pubs. Plus you can see journal titles on that list, and a quick glance at the first handful shows several PRL, Phys Rev, Eur Phys J, all highly respected journals. Furthermore, a lot of his work at CERN will be done as part of a huge collaboration, and those papers often have alphabetical author lists, so again, you're unlikely to see "Cox et al".

Can I remind you all to be nice please his wife is a MNetter to my utter mortification

Well I have to say (and not cos wife is lurking), we luffs Mr Gia in the boo house though sometimes we only understand about 33% of what he is talking about

This looks like a good thread on which to savour Freddie's embarrassment promote the Science and Nature Club topic:

Shameless Plug

freddie you can never change your mn name, you are now a legend!

QuiteLikingThatMrGiaIsCatchingOnTiggaxx

Brekekekex, lljkk - yes, mostly alphabetical with colossal author lists - Aad is a lucky name for a physicist, its like being AA taxis in yellow pages

TheDoctrine - you should ask MNHQ to relocate this thread to Sci&Nature.

Ladies who skim read thread then argue over his professorship, perhaps you'd like to check with his WIFE the lovely giagia who came onto this thread?!

Second calls for Gia for a webchat. Then maybe, just maybe Mr Gia if they can't get Mary Beard back again

I quite honestly wanted to understand the magnitude of his contribution was to science, that's all. The Profs I know worked 60 hour weeks as lecturers/Readers for 10-20+ yrs to get to be Profs, plus a handful who very cannily produced especially influential research at a relatively young age. So I thought BC must have produced some especially canny research relatively young, which made me wonder just what it was that he'd done that was so clever, but I guess I don't understand what it is (maybe it's beyond me to get it, anyway).

Then I thought I read something about him getting his Prof-ship due to "contributions to promoting the understanding of science" which was cool, too.

Now I've clocked Giagia's msgs but still none the wiser. But if it's any comfort, I've lost interest. It's not important.

I think individual universities are allowed to hand out their professorships as they see fit. Often it's a "most senior or most influential researcher in this subject that we have", which would fit the 20-30 years leading a group, but I don't think they have to say why they give them.

They don't have many so they wouldn't fling them around willy-nilly, of course.

Profs are like policemen - they get younger all the time.

I have one good Brian Cox story - Gia can tell us if it's true.

The Danny Boyle film Sunshine (which I highly recommend) is set on a spaceship and Cillian Murphy was one of the potential actors to be the onboard physicist.

Someone (for the sake of the story I usually say it was Danny Boyle) says "Physicists don't look like that".

Guess who rocks up and says "Hi, I'm your physics advisor"?

Yeah, I know one who is a similar age to MrGia - and he's had a second career strand for years and years too.

But there are professors specifically of scientific communication Etc - Richard Dawkins was Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science for years.